Meg Zomorodi’s mother prepped her to be a nurse from a young age – sharing the gory details of her own days in the emergency room and teaching her the nuts and bolts of the human body.

But it was her mother’s sudden death early in Zomorodi’s nursing career that did the most to shape her future path. Zomorodi emerged from the traumatic experience eager to improve the way nurses help critically ill patients and their families.

"She even taught me in her death how I could be a better nurse," Zomorodi says. "I think of her in everything I do."

Zomorodi has centered her career on improving end-of-life care – as a nurse, researcher and teacher. She trains future nurses as a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she also helped establish a scholarship in her mother’s name. More recently, she has led an initiative there to carve out new roles for nurses meant to improve patient care.